Sunday, May 15, 2005

Should we just start blaming Steve Moore now?

Well, Canada lost at the IIHF Worlds of Hockey.

A Silver will have to do. And the Czechs need to be given acknowledgement as a damned good team. (Actually all four of the last teams were the four teams that should have gone into the final four. Sweden, Russia, Czech and Canada. The US was merely a close 'also ran' to those four.

But what would have happened if Canada had had Todd Bertuzzi? Would Bertie have been good for that extra punch in the final game? My money is on 'yes' - partly as a Bertuzzi true-believer, and partly out of a need to blame someone.

So who exactly do we blame for the loss then? Well, Canada really seemed to lose the game in the third - both the first two periods were solid (despite the first goal fairly early on), but the third was full of mistakes and a lack of discipline. The team is culpable there, for certain.

But if Steve Moore wasn't such a knob from the start - read: his hit on Naslund and it's fall-out that I've already weighed in on at length - then Bertuzzi could have been playing today. Canada could have won.